Hilal Nakiboglu: Tips for the timid speaker

You've been there before. Standing in front of a crowd with eyes blurred, palms sweaty and mind utterly, frighteningly blank. Staring straight over everyone's head, you hesitate under the pressure of that pivotal moment: terrifying, larger-than-life, still, merciless.

That poignant second of silence right before you launch into a public presentation.

I remember vividly one such moment. It was my first attempt at academic speaking as a graduate student. I stood up in front of what I was assured would be a "small, friendly, informal" group of peers and professors. And then gave the worst talk of my life.

Although I had "practiced" prior to that day and been fine, come the actual presentation, it was a different ballgame all together.

I started with what I thought was a joke. Sadly, no one else seemed to agree. As I stood behind a dwarfing podium, searching the crowd for that "small, friendly" group of people I was promised, I felt the first pangs of a large-scale panic response.

I then put on a high-speed-audible-only-to-certain-canine-species-show-and-tell. It is still unclear to me what exactly the topic was.

Throughout the talk, I shuffled my notes obsessively. I sighed out loud. I mumbled. I fumbled. I gestured wildly about nothing. I broke out into a sweat. I broke out into a solo of laughter. I broke out into a small rash.

At the end of my allotted time, my hair raised to a frantic puff, I took a breath and looked around. It wasn't pretty.

Fast forward a few years. Now at Penn, many presentations later, I can say with relief and personal experience that the skills of public speaking can be learned. And learned they should be.

Whatever your field of study here, it is to your advantage to hone your verbal skills as best you can. How well you come across in class, in an interview setting or during a research presentation is a direct result of not only what you say but, perhaps even more importantly, how you say it.

Think back to Dr. Unsure. That professor you had last year. Disorganized and unclear or perhaps lacking confidence and classroom presence, Dr. Unsure was a walking presenter "don't." Though arguably intelligent, his inability to effectively communicate understanding of a subject made you lose interest in the material and maybe even a little respect for him.

To save you from some version of my public humiliation, and for the academia-bound grad students out there, I throw in my two cents -- make that three -- on how to achieve presentation nirvana.

1. Get over it! Put your previous failed attempts behind you. As computer whiz Doug Engelbart once said, "Your ability to grow and succeed is directly related to your ability to suffer embarrassment." Do not convince yourself that a bad speaking episode, or maybe even two or three, means you must be a terrible speaker. Or, worse yet, that you aren't intelligent. It doesn't.

2. Script it. Something I do regularly now is script out my presentations. I include not only what I'm going to say with each slide, for example, but when to point something out on the screen or when to add emphasis to a certain word. It's important not to rely too heavily on your script -- reading from it, for instance, is a surefire way to have audience members zone out -- but have it with you as a detailed reference. This will help if you have a tendency to blank under heat.

3. Have it down pat! Run through your entire presentation more than just a few times. Practice in the room where you are to present, if possible. Use your script. Test out the equipment in the room. Make sure you understand exactly what you trying to say. Then, make sure you are saying it.

Have friends, classmates or even a TA listen in and offer their advice. Did you brush over something that needs emphasis? Do you overuse a word? Are you fidgeting? Enunciating clearly? Have your "audience" time your practice runs. There's nothing like the feeling of being rushed in a presentation setting to throw you off course. Avoid this by knowing exactly how long your spiel should take you.

Public speaking can be stressful, but the presentation itself need not be, and Penn has a host of resources to aide you in your quest to be a better speaker. The Communication Within the Curriculum program, for instance, offers ways to help you come across "more clearly, more persuasively and above all to make speaking fun!"

With adequate preparation and practice, you can forever avoid becoming a walking presenter "don't."

Hilal Nakiboglu is a second-year doctoral student in Higher Education Management from Ankara, Turkey.

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